


Cigarettes After Sex

by Saedhriel



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Cigarettes, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-08-16 08:38:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8095393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saedhriel/pseuds/Saedhriel
Summary: "They both knew that they were seeking for the comfort of stranger arms. And they didn’t care. They just wanted to feel loved just for one night."Non-ZA AU. When they meet on a bar during a rainy night, they feel a strange conection, a kind of attraction. Damaged people tend to gravitate towards damaged people, after all.





	1. Into The Abyss

**Author's Note:**

> Damaged people tend to gravitate towards damaged people. That's what I wanted to write about when I had the idea for this fic.
> 
> You can blame Na Bruma Leve for asking me to write some smut. I did my best, I swear. Also special thank you to my lovely beta-readers lovesdaryl, alatarielgildaen and Geektaire for their support and to Cigarettes After Sex, the band whose name I'm using here. I hope you enjoy this fic!

_If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.  
_ _—Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra_

 

The corridor is dark, and the only lamp that hangs from the ceiling is unable to light them up as they head toward the room they just have rented. They are soaking the ugly carpet on the floor, water dripping from their wet clothes. It’s raining outside as if there was no tomorrow, and they have run from the bar where they met a few hours ago to the old hotel, on the other side of the street.

The man, with short brown hair and a haunted look in his eyes, is trying to open the door with a worn key, cursing in the dim light as the key refuses to enter in the keyhole of the room 506. The woman, all curly dark locks and sad smiles, gets closer.

“Let me try,” she says, her voice soft as a whisper.

She takes the key, her hand caressing his more than necessary, and she places it in the keyhole after a few seconds. The lock clicks, and the door opens.

She hears a deep sigh behind her, feels the warm breath on her neck, and she turns around to face him.

He’s so close to her that she can count the raindrops that run down his cheeks. So close that she can see his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallows nervously. So close that she just has to lean towards him a few centimeters to taste his lips.

She recognizes the strong flavor of whisky and the freshness of water as she licks his lower lip. She forgets who she truly is, devoured by the _she_ that she has created for tonight. She deepens the kiss and hears the surprised moan that escapes from his throat. He seems doubtful at first, but then his tongue caresses hers fearlessly, and his hand descends until she feels it touching her sex through the fabric of her pants. She gasps, a shiver running down her spine as he pushes her back. She’s now trapped, her back against the wall, her chest against his, trembling in the arms of a perfect stranger.

When he breaks the kiss, she opens her blue eyes. He’s panting for air, but his eyes descend again to her lips in a treacherous look before looking her straight in the eye.

He tilts his head, pointing at the empty room that waits for them. She nods, still captivated by his look. He is not what he seems to be. She knows that he’s pretending. They both are. And she doesn’t care. She just wants to forget.

She just wants to be someone else.

So she follows him inside the room.

  

_Ed wasn’t at home. He would be out until the next day in what he had called a business trip. Or that had been the excuse from the past week? It didn’t matter, both of them knew that it was just a lie. He might be getting drunk somewhere, or getting laid with someone. But she didn’t say anything, because she knew that it was her fault._

_She remembers looking at her reflection on the mirror and wondering if that was all. Was that her life now? Unable to control her own decisions, knowing herself a failure, someone that couldn’t live on her own because she was weak, selfish, stupid. Ed was right: without him, she was nothing._

_Nothing…_

_Her sunken eyes looked back at her from the mirror, dull and lifeless, reflecting a woman she didn’t recognize anymore. She started to cry, and cried until her eyes couldn’t shed more tears._

_What was left of her? Just a hollow shell. After two years of what was supposed to be a perfect marriage, all that was left was the fear, the guilt and the broken bones. She missed the woman she used to be. Smart,  funny, with a brilliant future at her feet. But she had taken the wrong path._

_She breathed deeply and stared back at the mirror. She saw the darkness in her eyes. The pain, the emptiness. She was lost and broken, feeling like a stranger in her own body. Who was she?_

_If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. She saw her own destruction in the abyss of her eyes. A lonely tear ran down her cheek, the sign of a decision._

_She would look for her destruction that night._

 

 The door thuds shut. The noise startles her, but no more than his overwhelming presence behind her, making her shake with anticipation. After a few seconds of hesitation, he brushes her curls away and leaves a soft kiss on her neck. She closes her eyes, her mouth open in a gasp that never comes out.

She rests her back on his chest, closing the separation between their bodies.  She feels his hardness, and the lust she thought she would never feel again grows inside her. She recognizes the dizziness and the heat on her lower belly as her heart hammers inside her chest with a strength that scares her.

She turns around. His eyes follow her until they’re face to face. His impatient hands start to unbutton her blouse, and then he freezes. She doesn’t have to ask why: the marks on her skin are visible now, the purple of the bruises revealing her untold story.

“No questions, okay?” she whispers. She has to keep the shame to herself. His face seems to darken in the low light that enters the windows. She looks into his eyes, oceans of blue and grey, and sees rage in them. During a moment, she sees herself reflected in them.

Slowly, he nods.

“’kay,” he says. His whisper is so soft that she can barely hear it over the sound of the rain outside. Then he touches her chin, tilts her head, and kisses her. His lips caress hers before he bites her lower lip, and she kisses him back fiercely, hungrily.

Her blouse falls onto the floor next to her coat. His jacket follows it. She almost rips up his T-shirt in her zeal, and he grabs her wrists abruptly. His chest heaves up and down, and she sees a mess of scars crossing it.

“No questions,” he says and she nods in return. But she can’t avoid looking into his eyes, realizing that she’s not the only one who wants to forget who she is tonight. His look is dark again, and she feels that she’s gazing into him and he’s gazing into her. She can see his monsters deep in the abyss, and hers smile in return.

No questions. That’s their deal. It’s fair because it’s sex, just sex.

She guides him toward the bed. They undress each other in the dim light. She doesn’t feel any discomfort when his eyes run over her whole body. She just feels braver, sick of the madness that possesses her. For one night, she owes nothing to nobody but herself.

The coldness of the room hits her bare skin, but she only starts to shake when she lays on the mattress with him over her. His weight is comforting, and she wonders how there can be so much tenderness in the lips of a stranger. She knows there’s no love in them, and she doesn’t pretend otherwise. She just writhes in the cage of his arms, the desperation to feel him inside her consuming her, _hurting_ her. She just wants to burn.

Her back arches when he sheathes himself inside her, and she moans softly. His thrusts make her gasp for breath, and she wraps her arm around his back, holding him tighter, as if she wanted to break him —or destroy herself. Her breathing becomes more and more erratic as she groans in his ear, a sound almost forbidden that makes him lose his mind. She rocks her hips against his until their bodies move together in a frenetic pace.

He looks at her face, at her closed eyes, at her open mouth, and buries his face in the crook of her neck. He sucks the soft skin, and kisses and caresses it. Her hand is buried in his hair, her fingers curling around his locks as she pulls them.

And then, it’s all over. He comes after a last thrust and he feels all the tension inside him vanishing. She tightens her embrace for a brief moment, lets out a deep sigh and relaxes in his arms. She slowly opens her eyes and locks her gaze on him. She’s still trying to catch her breath when he surprises himself leaning towards her and leaving a soft kiss on her cheek. She looks shocked at him, even scared, but he looks away.

The mattress sinks next to her when he moves aside to lie on the bed. They don’t talk, they don’t look at each other. They just lie side by side, listening to the rainfall outside.

It’s nice to feel a warm body next to you, after all.

  

  _She remembers leaving her house some hours ago, when the sun had already set. She left quickly, like a thief in the night, before she could change her mind. It was cold outside, and the sky seemed to announce rain. She wrapped up on her coat and walked away._

 _Her lips were still a bit red. She had tried to put some lipstick on them in a burst of bravery, but then, looking at her reflection on the mirror, a voice on her head_ _—_ _a voice that she knew so well_ _—_ _had reminded her that she wasn’t pretty enough. She wasn’t good enough. So she had removed the red paint from her lips with rage, and then had run away from the mirror._

_She had put her clothes on. They weren’t pretty either, just a white blouse and a pair of jeans. Ed had told her many times that he didn’t like her wearing provocative clothes. So she had stopped wearing her skirts, her dresses, her nice T-shirts. She had tried to convince herself that she didn’t mind. He said all those things because he loved her. Even when he had kept taking away all the little details that made her a complete person, she had kept excusing him. In the end, he had taken away her whole life._

_But that night she needed to feel that she owed her life. For some hours, she needed to believe a lie._

_She walked along the streets, ignoring the faceless silhouettes around her, wandering in the night. She didn’t know where she was going, she just let her feet guide her. Soon she was in a part of the city she didn’t recognize, surrounded by bright neon lights, tall buildings and a hundred stranger voices. She was surrounded by people, yet she felt lonely._

_A raindrop fell on her cheek and made her gaze up. Another one fell on her forehead, and suddenly a bolt of lightning lit up the night sky, followed some seconds later by a deafening clap of thunder. She looked around, searching for a place to take shelter from the rain, and saw a bar on her side of the street. Without hesitation, she headed toward it as the rain started to fall with vehemence._

_The interior of the bar was barely illuminated. The tables and chairs were made of dark wood, the same as the counter. There were several clients scattered across the room, and the soft buzz of their conversation competed with the rock music playing in the background. However, the counter was empty._

_She took a seat at the counter and ordered a drink, giving the waiter the most radiant smile she could get herself to fake. The alcohol warmed her up and made her head feel dizzy. Her body wasn’t used to it after years of abstinence, and she embraced its numbness without thinking._

_The glass was empty before she could even notice, and she looked around her with the distorted eyes that alcohol provides. She lost all sense of time, not sure if she spent a minute or an hour in that place. She noticed the eyes fixed on her, assuming what a woman like her would be looking for in a place like that._

_After several more rock songs had blared out from the jukebox, she met a man and they shared some smiles. She allowed herself to flirt with him; joking easily and accepting the drink he ordered for her. It was a man of easy conversation, barely a few years older than her, with an infectious smile and nice manners. He talked about his hobbies, how he loved carpentry, how his ex-wife had hated it. She laughed at his comments and tried to relax in his presence. He was friendly, his voice was warm; he could be as good as any other. That had been before she saw the lasciviousness on his eyes, the desperation in his movements, as if she was some kind of prize he could win._

_It had disgusted her more than she was willing to admit. She had felt the contempt inside her as she smiled him back and murmured a couple of excuses before getting up from the table they both were sharing and leaving him. He raised his voice, trying to make her come back, and eventually yelled some painful insults at her when she ignored him._

_She discovered then that the insults didn’t affect her. She could feel nothing_ _—_ _just cold and emptiness_ _—_ _when she sat again at the counter, just a few seats away from a man who must have arrived while she was away.  She had gotten to a point where she felt that she was seeing what happened around her through the eyes of another person._

 _She sighed, not sure if she should order another drink, and dared to look at the man sitting near her, this time with curiosity guiding her eyes. His attention was fixed on the glass in his hands_ _—_ _one of many that were in front of him_ _—_ _though he looked around from time to time, keeping an eye on the rest of the clients. He looked angry, but sad at the same time. He drank from the small glass_ _—_ _whiskey, perhaps?_ _— with the resignation of someone who sank their problems in the bottom of a bottle because they couldn’t do anything to solve them. He looked tired and lost, and his eyes seemed to warn her about him. He looked broken. Just like her._

 _When their eyes met, she felt breathless. When they talked, even when he refused at first, she understood that they were exactly the same. They didn’t share their names_ _—_ _she didn’t have to tell him the fake name she had thought of_ _—_ _they just talked. Or they didn’t say a word, letting the silence speak for them. When they left the bar and headed towards the hotel on the other side of the street, after an invitation made in a rough, urgent voice, they both knew that they were seeking for the comfort of stranger arms._

_And they didn’t care. They just wanted to feel loved for one night._

 

She wakes up some hours later and feels the cold sheets next to her. She looks around, afraid that he might have left her while she was sleeping. But she finds his figure silhouetted against the window, bare chest, wearing his trousers and holding a cigarette on his hand. The smoke escapes through the open window as he looks over the buildings. The rain has stopped, but a cool breeze enters the room.

She slides out of the bed and picks up her blouse from the floor. As she puts it on, she looks at him. She can see now the demon tattoos and scars on his back, and she wonders once again what the story behind them is.

She approaches him and leans on the window frame, next to him. He moves aside to make her room and looks briefly at her before fixing his gaze again in the city before him. She breaths deeply the night air, so cold that it gives her chills, and the smoke makes her wrinkle her nose.

Ed is a smoker, so she is used to the cigarette smell. She has learned to hate it because it reminds her of things she wish she could forget. But at the same, she has learned to appreciate the burning smoke going down her throat, the drowning feeling every time she puts a cigarette between her lips. Ed doesn’t know that she steals him his precious cigarettes. He doesn’t know that she lights them up when he’s not at home and enjoys the smoke that destroys her from the inside.

 “May I?” she asks, raising a hand. He grunts an answer, takes a deep drag and offers her the cigarette. She takes it —again, she caresses his hand more than necessary— and breaths in the smoke as she leans back her head. The smoke raises from her lips in lazy clouds, and she notices that he is looking at her.

“Never guessed that ya smoke,” he says, genuinely surprised, while he accepts back the cigarette. She has to smile against herself, ironically, painfully. But she doesn’t answer. What can she say? That he doesn’t know her? She remains silent and so does he.

When the sunlight starts to slip through the buildings, she breaks the silence.

“I have to go,” she says. She doesn’t know what to say to that man, how to say goodbye to a man that she knows she is not going to see never again. So she says the only words that she needs to say. “Thank you.”

Then she leans towards him —he tenses a bit, taking by surprise— and kisses him in the forehead. Gently, gratefully. She is glad to have met him.

“Goodbye.”

The farewell sounds empty. She needs a name, but she can’t ask for it. She has no right.

He clears his throat. “Daryl,” he says. “The name’s Daryl.”

 _Daryl_.

“Carol,” she says in return. She looks away. They’re not supposed to meet again, so there’s no danger on telling him her name. “Goodbye, Daryl.”

“Goodbye.”


	2. Cold Sheets

_Let's whisper some truth, my darling_  
_can't take anymore lies._  
 _Touch my skin and feel me_  
 _I've been lying so much_  
 _I've seen the dead end_  
 _no ends to find._  
 _—“On The Floor”, Tango With Lions_

 

She didn’t come back to the bar the next week. Nor the following week, nor the one after, nor the one after that. Every time he crosses the door of the bar, his eyes go straight to the bar counter where they first met. He always finds it empty, and every little deception hits him, turning into a sad frustration with every passing week.

He sits alone in the room full of people. Her cold memory is the only thing left from her. And even her memory starts to fade away, leaving him wondering if they ever truly met.

He returns every Friday with an almost religious precision, always hoping to find her leaning on the bar counter, but knowing at the same time that he won’t find her there. They were clear in their arrangement: they would share one night, and then they would follow their own path. One night, and they shall never meet again.

He knows it. He knew it when he kissed her that night, and when he walked back home and Merle cruelly joked about him having used —at last— the condom he had given his baby brother months ago. He knew it during the endless Saturday mornings when he tossed and turned in his bed, trying to fall asleep after having spent hours looking for her in the bar. He knows it perfectly and yet, here he is. Drinking whiskey and watching the people around him with disinterest as he empties glass after glass, week after week.

He refuses to let her memory go. He remembers her lips, her dark hair curling on her back, her soft voice when she talked to him. He hadn’t even asked for it when he went to the bar that night, eager to drink and forget. When she approached him, wearing a sad look and a shy smile, he was ready to send her away. He had made it with other women, he could do it again. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

She had made him feel so _good_. And he wants more.

Like an insatiable beast, he craves for her presence in a selfish and visceral way. He wants the peaceful silence his mind falls into when he’s with her, concentrated on the warmth of her skin instead of the demons of his mind. Demons with his brother’s face, or his own face. Demons he cannot escape from.

But she’s not coming back. Because that was the deal. Even if that wasn’t, why would she come back? He’s nobody.

 

_The shouts of his father were still echoing in his ears when he opened his eyes, abruptly waking up from sleep. He fought to normalize the beating of his heart as he fixed his look on the pale constellations on the ceiling of his room. They were already there when Merle and he had moved to that house, and he didn’t want to remove them. They helped him calm down when his nightmares haunted him at night._

_The nightmare had been especially vivid this time. He had been thrown back to his childhood and he had been forced to remember the terror when his father locked his eyes on him, or the devastation when he heard the distant crying of his mom somewhere in the house._

_Not even then, when both of them were dead, could he forget them._

_He got up from his bed and headed toward the minuscule bathroom at the end of the narrow corridor. He felt his back aching, but he couldn’t tell if it was because of the uncomfortable posture he had fallen asleep in or if it was an unconscious reminder of his father’s legacy._

_Once in the bathroom, he filled his hands with cold water and buried his face in it. Then he looked at the person who looked back at him from the mirror and smiled at the sunken eyes and bitter expression of that son of a bitch._

_He went back to his room, but first he peeked in the living room. The TV was on, but Merle had fallen asleep on the couch. The room stank of beer, and it didn’t take him so much to find the plastic bag with the blue papers inside and the empty cans lying on the floor._

_He ground his teeth and left the room, slamming the door shut._

 

The next time he goes to the bar, the night is dark and cold. The streets are almost empty, and even the neon lights seem to shine weaker than usual.

The bar is almost as empty as the streets: the cold blast is wreaking havoc there as well. The rock music sounds miserable in the big room without anyone listening to it. His eyes check out the counter, making sure that she’s not there today either, and he sits in his place. He orders his drink —while he begins to wonder if he had ever drunk anything else but whiskey— and tries to shut down his thoughts.

He plays with the glass with his hands, watching the dark liquor dancing inside it. The night is going to be long, and he is cold and alone.

 

_“You going out?”_

_He didn’t even stop to answer his brother’s question as he walked through the apartment._

_“Yeah.”_

_He had already reached the door, his hand resting on the doorknob, when his brother raised his voice again._

_“Don’t come back too late,” Merle said. “We got some work to do tomorrow.”_

_He ground his teeth. Merle had an order tomorrow, some big guy who wanted to get his drugs discreetly. They would meet at the park at midday, next to the big carrousel besides the park lake. The exchange would be quick, no questions, no second thoughts. In less than five minutes, they would earn around $400._

_That was how the Dixons worked._

_“I’ll come back when I wanna,” he replied, finally, more aggressive than he expected. He opened the door to leave their apartment violently, but he didn’t get to leave. Merle approached him quickly and pushed the door shut. The noise echoed in the dark corridor, but no neighbor came out to see what had happened._

_“Don’t talk to me like that, lil’ brother,” he said. His voice was so threatening that it gave Daryl’s chills. But the rage went away as soon as it had appeared, and suddenly his brother was smiling. For a brief moment, Daryl saw his father on Merle’s face. “It’s not my fault that you haven’t fucked in the last weeks, ya know?”_

_Daryl didn’t answer._

_“I can get ya some lovely ladies, hmm?” Merle added. “Once we get the money, you can have all the whores you wanna. Sounds good?”_

_“Fuck you.”_

_He opened the door again, and this time Merle didn’t oppose it. Daryl saw his brother’s smile before he slammed the door shut and left the apartment without looking back._

_He still remembered when his brother got out of jail, two years ago. He had spent twelve months behind bars after being expelled from the army. They had discovered his meth in a routine inspection, and that had been the end of his short —but problematic— career in the military service. They only found him guilty of illegal possession of drugs, but it was well known that he used to deliver meth to his squad mates. The prosecution couldn’t prove it because nobody testified against him during the trial and the quantity of meth they found in Merle’s room was too small to be considered anything but for personal use. They couldn’t find out who his dealer was either. In the end he was sentenced to a year in jail and removed from his military rank._

_Once he went to prison the case was soon forgotten._

_A year later, he had been released. During his period in there he had been forced to take part in a rehabilitation program, and after a few months someone had decided that he was rehabilitated, free of his drug dependence. And for a while, Daryl had truly believed it. That had been his first mistake._

_Then there had come the unpaid bills, the mysterious phone calls in the evening, the loss of the money Daryl got working on his shitty jobs. The rope around their neck became tighter when the companies cut off the power at home, and then the running water. They were one step away from losing everything they had._

_They had no family to ask for money, and they couldn’t afford to ask for a loan at the bank. When Merle had come up with a solution, Daryl was desperate enough to take it. He said they would earn easy money, that he knew some friends that could help them to get out of their situation. He promised he would do it just once, just until they earned enough money. And Daryl had trusted him. That had been his second mistake._

_Like when they were children, he had let Merle do his will. He had followed Merle, sure that his was the only way. They were alone in the world and they only had each other. The world turned its back on them long ago, so why shouldn’t they do the same? After all, he was a redneck with no future. He was nobody. He was what the world had made of him._

_But sometimes, in the nights when their apartment was full of people he didn’t know, too drugged to even articulate a word anymore, he closed his eyes and tried to convince himself that this was what he wanted. What they had been forced to do in order to survive. It was the only way._

_Then, why did he feel so lost?_

 

A cold breeze hits his back when the door opens some meters behind him. He curses in a low voice and shrinks under the unexpected shiver that goes down his spine. The door still remains open for a few seconds more before closing with a dull thud. The breeze stops and Daryl allows himself to breathe again.

He buries his face in his hands and breathes deeply. He doesn’t need to look at the watch on his wrist to know that it is time to go. The glasses in front of him are the only ones to keep him company. The bartender has given him more than one worried look during the night, but he keeps serving him alcohol every time he asks for it. He looks miserable and he knows it.

He’s not drunk, though. He hates his father too much —damn, he hopes he’s rotting in hell— to turn into a younger version of him. He drinks to sink his problems, but never lets the alcohol control him. The times he has let it happen, he ended up regretting it deeply.

He raises his face to look at the bartender, ready to ask for another drink, and he noticed that the man has fixed his eyes on someone behind him, probably waiting for them to order something.

“May I serve you something, ma’am?”

The person behind him takes her time to answer distractedly.

“No, I’m good. Thanks.”

He tenses at the sound of her voice as if he has been pricked. Slowly, very slowly, afraid of what he might find, he turns his head until he faces the blue eyes he has been longing to see for weeks. She’s here, just a few steps away from him.

 _Carol_.

She’s wearing a tight, red scarf around her neck, elegantly matched with her black coat. He can’t help but notice her lips, red with lipstick, and the long, curly brown hair collected in a ponytail. However, she looks nervous, almost desperate when she locks her gaze with his.

“Can I… Can I sit here?” she asks doubtfully, her voice as soft as he remembered. He finds himself nodding once, unable to look away from her, as he grabs the stool next to him to make her room. His hands shake uncontrollably despite his efforts to control them.

She takes off her scarf and her coat, revealing her slim figure under it. The red, recent mark on her neck becomes visible too, and even when she tries to hide it, Daryl’s eyes keep fixed on it after the fabric of her purple shirt covers it. Anger bubbles inside him, but he remembers his promise. _No questions_.

They stay silent while she orders her drink and the bartender rushes to serve her a White Martini. He doesn’t know what to say. How to talk to someone you weren’t supposed to meet again?

“You…” he starts and clears his throat. “You good?”

He sees the ghost of an ironic, sad smile before she answers. Her eyes shine for a moment, tears in them, before she blinks and the shining goes away.

“Yeah. And you?” she asks. She sounds sincerely worried.

“I’m doin’ okay,” he lies.

“Good.”

They are not expected to tell the truth. When the truth is too hard to be spoken, it is better to come up with some harmless lies. And that’s what they do.

They continue the pantomime. The whispers of their conversation fade away in the silent and empty bar. They talk about empty, harmless things. He tells her that he works in a motorbike shop, loves metal music and used to travel a lot when he was a kid. She talks about her years at college, how she works now as a literature teacher and that her favorite book is Tom Sawyer. Neither of them knows what it’s true and what it’s not, but they don’t really care. They talk because it feels better than to be silent, just because they feel _listened to_ for the first time in years. In the end, they are the same.

He realized that her voice trembles as she speaks. She can barely look at his eyes, holding back the tears that want to run free down her cheeks. Eventually, she runs out of the energy to keep talking. He raises a hand and touches her chin, making her face him.

He gets it. It’s been a rough day, a rough week. He gets it.

When he leans to kiss her, she’s crying. He can feel the salty taste in his mouth. He tastes her and thinks that it is the saddest kiss he ever had.

He lets her cry on his shoulder when they break the kiss. The touch feels weird, but he doesn’t want to run away from it. He just feels the wet trail of tears through his shirt, the slight shiver of her body, the tickles of her hair on his face. He holds her tightly between his arms, hesitantly, and waits for the despair to ease.

The night is cold when they leave the bar. He still holds her tight as they walk towards the hotel on the other side of the street. The room is cold when they get into it, but her body is warm and inviting. Maybe, just maybe, she can warm up his cold heart.

They lie together in the darkest hours of the night. She embraces him with the freshness of tears still on her face and moans softly when he gets inside her. There is no urgent passion this time, just a withered need, a deep comfort. This time, she doesn’t let him go when they’re finished. She keeps holding him desperately tight, shaking in the early morning, and he lets her presence fill him.

She gets up after a while. She quickly hides her nudity under one of the hotel gowns as she picks the forgotten pack of cigarettes from the floor and approaches the window. He sits up on the bed and sees her silhouette outlined against the rising brightness of dawn as the smoke envelops her like a morning fog.

She looks calmer now. Her hair falls freely down her back as she leans against the window frame to watch over the city. He stares at her and tries to memorize all her details while he still can. He doesn’t know if he will see her again. Their promise is broken, so what now?

When her cigarette is finished, she buries its end in the ashtray and slowly turns to face the room. She collects her clothes from the floor and starts dressing. He looks at her as she does so, and there is a moment where the words he wants to say before it’s too late burn inside his throat.

“Wanna see you again.”

Silence.

“Please, don’t tell me that,” she finally says.

He tries to fight his own disappointment. He knew she would say something like this. After all, who is he to ask her for anything else?

“Why?”

“I… I can’t,” she says. Her voice is so broken that he can’t say anything else. “I just can’t.”

She finishes dressing up and stands up in the middle of the room. She looks sad, so sad, as if it is harder for her to keep her word. After a deep sigh, she approaches the bed and sits on its edge, next to him, still undressed under the sheets, still vulnerable.

“You’re a good person, Daryl,” she says. “Don’t let the world take you down.”

She kisses him on the forehead. He closes his eyes briefly at the soft touch. A smile makes its way to her lips as she looks at him.

And then, she just leaves. Only her cold sheets remain.


End file.
